I've spent the last week or so in beautiful Boston with Abby and family! There were days, I would have sworn I was at home in Houston (more than a few toasty humid days!), but for the most part, another lovely visit!! And so, to wrap up the Little Black Book Blog for the week, we bring you another style of Texan-true weddings. Don't get me wrong ... we do loooooooove our barbecue and boot-scootin' music! But when the sun goes down (and the mosquitos are on a rampage), we know when to ramp it up, and head indoors to one of our most elegant resorts. Let's just say, we Texans DO clean up rather nicely, we're the friendliest people that walk the face of the planet and boy (howdy!) do we know how to party!

When we started the wedding planning process, only a few things were of dire importance to us. First, we wanted the wedding to be held in Austin, the place where we went to school, met and have resided for the past ten years. Ironically, while we both live in Austin, almost all of our 250 guests would be traveling to attend the wedding and there is no better place for a weekend getaway than Austin with its fantastic local cuisine and live music scene. Once we settled on Austin, there seemed no better place to have the wedding than Barton Creek Resort and Spa. A full-fledged resort tucked away in the hills of Austin only 10 minutes from downtown seemed to be the perfect outfit to entertain our guests. The guys were able to head out to one of Barton Creek's world renowned golf courses for a tournament on Friday while other guests treated themselves to the spa, tennis lessons and horseback riding.

And then their once-in-a-lifetime day began!

We knew immediately that we wanted our guests to experience some true Texas and Austin flair. It was then we determined that we could treat our family, friends and those traveling with a trip out to the famous Thurman's Mansion at the Salt Lick for true Texas barbeque and country music by Jennie and the Corn Ponies. This served as a great compliment to our more traditional wedding and reception the following night.

On our wedding day, Craig and I got married at our church, Tarrytown United Methodist Church. We decided to keep the decorations simple with two modest floral arrangements and votive candles in the windows and really let the church's elegance speak for itself. Guests were greeted with handmade programs embodied with a simple and crisp monogram of our first names when they got to the church (the same monogram used on our invitations and cocktail napkins). While the monograms were designed and created by the Inviting Pear, in order to cut down on some costs, we decided to write and design the programs ourselves. Four pages of text were bound with a black leather rope and a silver medallion and an outside granite metallic cardstock (with our monogram). Because we were constructing the programs ourselves, we were able to use words more liberally and dedicated two pages to write mini letters to our wedding party members, thanking them for great memories and the impact they've had on our lives. Our guests really appreciated having something to read while waiting for the ceremony to begin and it gave everyone a little background on the people who have had a hand in shaping who we are today.

The remainder of our wedding was a mix of the classics with a modern edge. Craig and I left the church for our send-off and walked down the long pathway lit up with luminaries to a 1960 white vintage Bentley. The guests arrived at Barton Creek Resort and Spa to a cocktail hour in a beautiful atrium lit up with blue lighting on the walls as the wedding took on a more icy and modern feel. After the cocktail hour, the reception began in a hall adorned with iced blue lighting and tall centerpieces with rings of white flowers and branches shooting out of the top. Guests dined on heavy appetizers including lobster and goat cheese pastries and crab cakes, coupled with more heartier options like seafood risotto. The bride's cake had an non-traditional architectural feel and consisted of three white tilting layers, accented by straight geometric grid patterns. The groom's cake was shaped as the State of Texas with a University of Texas Longhorn decal on the top.

The entertainment by Blind Date, a local Austin band, was the heart and sole of our wedding planning (to the point where we literally planned our wedding date around their availability). Blind Date's members are amazing performers and we knew that they would be quick to get the party started. One of the most important things to us was to give people a good time as a "thank you" for taking time to travel to Austin for our wedding weekend. We quickly decided to lighten things up by providing our guests with flip flops to dance in, boas, glow necklaces and bracelets and eyeglasses with rims which would light up in multiple different patterns (solid lights, flashing lights, cascading lights, blinking lights). Everyone was thrilled with the "flare" and the dance floor was continuously crowded. The evening ended with yet another toast to Texas as breakfast tacos and OJ shooters were brought out as a nightcap.